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22.2.10

My new novel, coming 1 April, is Hostage Queen.After writing 25 family sagas I felt the need for a change. Do let me know what you think of it.

It is published by Severn House and you can find it on Amazon.

Marguerite de Valois is the most beautiful woman in the French Court, and the subject of great scandal and intrigue. Her own brothers: the mad Charles IX and the bisexual Henri III, will stop at nothing to control her. Margot loves Henri of Guise but is married off to the Huguenot Henry of Navarre. By this means her mother Catherine de Medici hopes to bring peace to the realm.

But within days of the wedding the streets of Paris are awash with blood in the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Not only is her new husband’s life in danger, but her own too as her mother and brother hold them hostage in the Louvre. Can they ever hope to escape and keep their heads? In a court rife with murder, political intrigue, debauchery, jealousy and the hunger for power, it will not be an easy task.

Author’s Note

Very little has needed to be invented in this story as Margot led a life full of incident, romance, intrigue and danger. I have nonetheless used my imagination to interpret her reaction to events, her love affairs, and to fill in any gaps. While historians agree that the seed for the Massacre of Saint Bartholemew was sown in the talks at Bayonne, there is some dispute on how much was pre-planned. I have made my own decision on this which I feel is logical. Where these are known, I have used a person’s actual words, modifying them slightly to suit the modern ear.